Some of y’all are confusing the movies with real life again, and you really need to stop it…
Every time there’s an incident (like the one in Columbus, Ohio last week) where a cops shoots a suspect armed with a knife I hear the usual blue check activist class suspects saying stupid things like “that Cop should’ve fired a warning shot” or “he should’ve shot her in the leg.”
Well…
Here’s what I find most interesting about that. There’s this general assumption on the woke Left that gun owners are like outlaws in a spaghetti western… like we run around town swillin’ bathtub whiskey, screamin’ “YEEEE-HAW!!” and shooting our guns in the air, or that we leave loaded weapons lying around playgrounds with the hammers cocked so they’ll be easy for toddlers to pick up and shoot.
The truth is actually quite different. My kids are ten and six and both of them can recite all of the rules of gun safety. Most of the gun owners I know take weapons storage and safety very seriously and amongst serious shooters, just about the worst (read: most embarassing) thing you can do as a responsible gun owner is to have a negligent discharge.
And so I find it quite ironic that the vaunted woke Left, who are so obviously more empathetic than we craven gun owners are, and who so obviously care more about “The Children (TM)” than we do, would suggest an alternate approach to policing that clearly violates two of the most important rules of gun safety.
Always know your target and what is behind it – So, where exactly are you planing to put this warning shot…. in the air? Where is it going to land? I dunno, so therefore I can’t know my target or what’s behind it, so I must not shoot.
Into the ground? Can you be sure it won’t kick up and ricochet somewhere? If so, where will it go? I dunno, therefore I cannot know my target or what’s behind it, so I must not shoot.
Into a house or car or mailbox? Again, who or what is in the house or the car or behind the mailbox? I dunno, therefore I cannot know what’s behind my target, so I must not shoot.
Responsible gun owners don’t do “warning shots” because the shot has to go somewhere, and whatever is there is going to get one hell of a lot more than a warning.
Never point your weapon at anything you don’t intend to destroy – If it’s a warning shot, a shot designed to get someone’s attention so they stop doing whatever they are doing, then by definition, I do not intend to destroy ANYTHING. Therefore, anything at which I point my weapon is, also by definition, something I do not intend to destroy. Therefore I must not point my weapon at it (much less shoot it).
That’s it… that’s the tweet (as the kids say).
Both rules apply equally well to “he should’ve just shot him in the leg!” guy. I don’t know about you, but while I understand that there is a femoral artery somewhere in every human leg, I’ll be damned if I could tell you exactly where it is with enough accuracy to feel confident that I could miss it, even with a well-aimed shot. And while I don’t know for certain if you can die from a shattered leg bone, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to find out. And even if, by some miracle, I don’t kill the person I’m trying to merely wound, and the bullet passes through soft tissue and comes out the other side with most of its speed and energy intact… what then?
By every rule of gun safety, and all else that is holy, you cannot take that shot.
These are the most basic of gun safety laws. As I said, my ten-year-old and six-year-old sons know and understand them. It’s sad that the army of Professional Twitter Second-Guessers don’t know as much about gun safety as the gun owners (and their children) whom they so despise.
… Six-year-olds, dude…
I gotta tell ya, I think I’m finally beginning to understand the gun grabbers… if the average American gun owner “understood” guns the way woke Leftists do, I’d probably want them all confiscated too.
